[Tract] My Horn Wouldn’t Stop

When I was a senior in high school, I had a Ford Escort station wagon. I can’t remember what happened exactly, but my horn got messed up. My horn would sound off perpetually without me having to push it. The only way I could keep the horn from sounding was to hold it in the depressed position. Being a teenager, I didn’t think it a big deal to drive like this. I would hold the horn out with my left hand, and steer and shift gears with my right (remember stick-shifts?). This worked except around turns. I would have to let go around turns. A friend suggested that I take out the fuse to the horn. That worked, except the same fuse was connected to the brake lights! My horn would cease to sound, but then the brake lights wouldn’t work. Not a good situation. I decided to leave the fuse in and blast random people with my horn when I went around turns. I caused quite a stir, but at least I didn’t get rear-ended.

This (true) story is a good illustration of how our conscience works. In life, we face many instances where we are confronted with some kind of temptation. We may be tempted to lie to get out of some trouble, to falsify our taxes, to abuse alcohol, to cheat on our spouse, or to indulge in pornography. If you can remember back to the first few times you started to do something wrong, you will remember the amazing built-in alarm system that God has given us. It’s called our conscience. Whenever we go to do something that isn’t right, our conscience starts to sound like a car horn in our soul. And the horn doesn’t go off until we deal with it. Regrettably, instead of dealing with the problem properly, many people choose to just ‘pull out the fuse.’ This seems to fix the problem, but the reality is that it just makes things worse. Instead of fixing the problem, we just put a greater problem in our future.

Have you done that? We all have. We’ve all stomped over our conscience. Why? Because we wanted to do what WE wanted to do.

Well, I have good news and bad news regarding this.

First the bad news.

The bad news is that we’ve sinned against God. God put our conscience there to help direct us away from breaking His law. But instead of listening to our conscience, we often decide to roll over it time and time again. God keeps an account of all the things we have done. When we die, we will appear before Him in His eternal courtroom. If we are found guilty of breaking His law (which we will be if we’ve disregarded our conscience), we will be cast away from His presence into a place of everlasting darkness.

But here’s the good news.

The good news is that God doesn’t want ANYONE to perish. In his mercy, He provided a way for guilty sinners like us to escape. He sent His Son, Jesus, to die on a cross for our sins. Jesus willingly took our guilt upon Himself and was punished in our place. He suffered a horrific death, was buried for three days, but then came back to life! He is presently alive and has extended the gift of eternal life to all that put their faith in Him. That’s great news!

Now God has placed before you life and death. You can choose to receive His gracious gift, or you can choose to keep removing the fuse. Doing so may temporarily remove your discomfort, but it will ultimately end in disaster. Instead, turn from your sins and turn to God today. God Bless you.